Dove hits home with beauty

Whooo!!! Most of us are on summer vacation finally and it feels so good! On that note, I want to write about the awesome Dove Campaign circling our Facebook and essentially every social media vehicle.

Dove launched their current campaign, Real Beauty in 2004. The campaign focuses on inspiring women to have the confidence to be comfortable with themselves. In fact, one of their main focuses is to make the world a place where beauty is a source of confidence not anxiety—they are trying to widen the definition of beauty—encompassing women of all shapes, sizes, ages. Most people would agree that Dove has had a successful and positive result from the campaign, that their commercials, interviews, ads make women rethink self-esteem and focus more on why they, themselves define their own beauty. Last week, Dove posted a video that went viral on YouTube. The video featured everyday women and a professional sketch artist, one who actually works for a police department. The women first described them selves to the artist—what their face looked like, their own features. As they were describing, he was sketching. After, the women then got to meet with one other woman and describe her features to the artist. Not only can you see the difference in the results of the drawings but also you can hear it in the women. Instead of using terms like “protruding jaw,” like they did when they described their own faces, they were saying kind things about each other. They instead said things that they liked about the women, like “she has a nice nose,” or “she has a big smile,” or even “ her eyes were big and welcoming.”
Within those words as fellow women we see a lot of things. First, and perhaps most importantly—we see how critical we are of ourselves—most often much harsher than those around us. We also see again, what Dove is trying so hard to present to us, that our looks do not define out beauty. We also see that other women can be so kind, even without knowing us.
Critics of the video say, that the women featured are still very attractive women and model like. Because of the women looking like that, it is sending unrealistic images out for women to still try and achieve. But this is where I think they are so wrong. I think because most of the women in the video are what the average American finds attractive it proves that all women are vulnerable to feeling insecure. This shows us that all women see their flaws the most. It proves that beauty is not protection from ourselves. Beauty is not confidence. Those things come from within us. This shows that even if we reach the level of beauty that we seem to always want, happiness is not guaranteed.
I think it is well worth anyone’s time to view the video. Here is the link:”“:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpaOjMXyJGk Spread it to the women you love and care about and remind them why they are beautiful—be it because they are kind or generous or funny.

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding, that fills them with compassion, gentleness and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”— Elizabeth Ros